Hank Smith: 00:00 Hello, my friends. Welcome to Follow Him Favorites. This year for Come, Follow Me, John and I are answering a question that goes with each week’s lesson. And this question, John, is one that we’re not just going to hit this week. We’ll be hitting it for the rest of our lives, because this happens all the time. I get this question frequently. I think I just got it yesterday.

Hank Smith: 00:24 It comes in different forms, but really what it is, is, “I was trying so hard to be good. I was doing my best and this bad thing happened to me,” right? We’re talking about Joseph of Egypt, who was doing his best, and here all of these terrible things happened to him. And the question is, “Why? Why do these bad things happen to people who are trying to be good?”

Hank Smith: 00:47 I’m sure this is something that comes up with your friends, family, students, because it comes up with mine all the time. What do you think? What do you say?

John Bytheway: 00:55 Boy, Hank, we could talk about this, both of us, for hours. I think sometimes you have to look at what are bad things, because sometimes we cause our own problems. Sometimes other people misuse their agency, terribly. Tragic stories about that. Sometimes things are pretty random.

John Bytheway: 01:11 But some better ways that I try to approach it is, what do we know for sure? “We know God loves His children, but we don’t know the meaning of all things,” to quote Nephi, right? And the thing that’s wonderful is God can even turn bad things into something wonderful. When we look at the story of Joseph at the end, he says three times in a row, “God sent me before you to prepare you, to save you.” And, I mean, the brothers could have been going, “No, we sold you. We remember that thing.”

Hank Smith: 01:41 I’m pretty sure. I’m pretty sure it was me.

John Bytheway: 01:42 But Joseph has this great perspective. He’s like, “I get it now. God didn’t ask you to sell me. You did. But God turned that into something wonderful.” And I think it was President Steve Lund I heard say once, said, the Young Men’s general president that, “God doesn’t cause all suffering, but He never wastes it. He’ll find something to turn it for our growth and our good.”

John Bytheway: 02:03 We know that Abinadi burned. It’s possible to do everything right and still suffer. But we know Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t. So, that’s kind of a puzzling thing that we see bad things happen to good people, Joseph Smith, Liberty Jail. And what does the Lord say to him? “The son of man hath descended below them all.” I mean, it’s a constant question, and it’s a good question. But it comes down to trusting God, doesn’t it, I think.

Hank Smith: 02:29 We probably come into this with a bad assumption, and the bad assumption is, “If I do what is right, if I really strive to keep the commandments and do what God has asked me, then no bad thing will ever happen to me.” And when it does, then, “What did I do wrong? Why would this happen to me?” Our assumption’s probably off.

Hank Smith: 02:48 If we look in the scriptures, there’s plenty of examples of people doing really well, keeping the commandments, being obedient, and things turn wrong. Things go against them. But you’re right, John. 2 Nephi 2, right there in the beginning, “God will consecrate thine affliction for thy gain.” I can take something terrible and make it beautiful, but you got to give Him time. You got to give Him trust. Isaiah says, “He gives us beauty for ashes.”

John Bytheway: 03:16 For ashes.

Hank Smith: 03:17 And we’re not talking about a God who says, “Well, I’m going to stay up here drinking pina coladas while you go down there and suffer. Here’s Jesus saying, “I will go down there, too. I will experience all this suffering, rejection, heartache with you,” right? Like you said, section 122. “I will descend below them all, so I can experience this too so I know how to help you.” Alma 7.

John Bytheway: 03:45 That vision of Enoch that we talked about that’s so beautiful, “How is it that thou canst weep?” It’s poetry. It’s beautiful. Thy tears is rain upon the mountains. As Satan looks up and laughs, God looks down and weeps. And the thing I love about that is it teaches us God is not unaffected by our problems, like you said.

John Bytheway: 04:05 I heard somebody say something once that I just loved. I had to write it down. God is more interested in our growth than He is in our comfort. Again, sometimes we cause our own trials, sometimes other people’s bad agency. But God will find a way to help us to grow through that. And then we find out, really, even our bad things can be turned to our benefit, eventually.

John Bytheway: 04:27 And I just love the word “eventually,” Hank. All the beatitudes are eventually. Blessed are the, are, right now, poor and spirit, those who mourn, those who are weak, for they shall be eventually… There’s a future possibility, so we got to trust in the Lord.

Hank Smith: 04:43 Yeah. We trust in the plan. There’s this story in John 9 where this man is blind, and His apostles, the Savior’s apostles say, “Who did sin, this man or his parents?”

John Bytheway: 04:53 Yeah, there must be a reason. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 04:56 Bad thing happened. There’s got to be someone who made a mistake. And Jesus says, “Nobody sinned,” right? “This is God’s plan for him, but nobody sinned. Nobody did anything wrong for this bad thing to happen.” It’s kind of a pervasive doctrine that bad things are always attached to sin and that good things are always attached to obedience and keeping the commandments.

John Bytheway: 05:16 We’ll be coming up on Job, and we’ll see that same thing. Everybody’s, “Well, maybe you did this. Maybe you did this.” They call it the doctrine of retribution or law of retribution or something. There must be a reason. And in this case, this is the Lord giving him something puzzling that they wrestle with. But Job is amazing through the whole thing.

Hank Smith: 05:35 We’re here to become something. Remember King Benjamin? We’re here, and a natural man’s an enemy to God and will be forever unless he or she yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, puts off the natural man, and becomes a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

Hank Smith: 06:03 So, this idea of your difficulties and trials are creating something, they’re a pathway to becoming more like God, is an important perspective so we can keep going down that plan. Trust in the plan. The end result is going to look beautiful.

Hank Smith: 06:20 I’ve often said that when the Provo Tabernacle burned down, it was probably pretty mad at God and said, “Hey, I tried really hard to be a good building. Look what happened. Thanks a lot. There’s other buildings on this street that deserve this. I was a good church for 124 years, and then I get burned down.”

John Bytheway: 06:39 That’s a good beauty for ashes.

Hank Smith: 06:41 Thank you so much. And then here the Lord might say to it, “Hold on. Hold on. Let me do my work.” And then you end up with the Provo City Center Temple where the Lord would say, “See, I had a plan for you all along.”

Hank Smith: 06:55 I like to see myself or others are in that process that the Lord sees the end result. He sees the end from the beginning. He’s saying, “Hold on. Hold on. I see the end. It looks good. The end looks good.”

John Bytheway: 07:10 And sometimes when we go through something difficult, we become such a tool that the Lord can use when somebody else is going through it, and He can put us in their same space. We can say, “Oh, I know what you’re going through.” And it’s a huge benefit to people when they have a trial just to know that somebody else has been there.

Hank Smith: 07:32 Been there and made it through, and you can sit with them.

John Bytheway: 07:35 And is firm in the faith.

Hank Smith: 07:37 Yeah. You call it “same boat therapy.”

John Bytheway: 07:38 Same boat therapy. I’ve been in the same boat, and “Really? Oh, then you can help me, and we can become something together.” Love that word “become.” Go find October 2000 President Oaks The Challenge to Become. What a great talk. It’s not about what we know. It’s not even about what we do. It’s what we are becoming in the process.

Hank Smith: 08:00 The other day, I was at a fireside, and I met with a family whose father had just been killed in a car accident. He was fine that morning. Things were going great, right? Family was happy. Everybody’s doing well, and by that evening, he had been killed.

Hank Smith: 08:15 Their faith was amazing. “We trust in the plan,” they told me. “We trust in God’s plan for us. Even though it’s hard right now, we know He sees the end. We know.” And I was just so amazed by… It’s incredible the faith that is shown by saints across the world when difficulty happens and they stand up under it. I think Joseph Smith said that to the 12. “Stand up under it.”

John Bytheway: 08:37 You know what I love about that is some people will say, “Well, religion is a crutch for the week,” or something like that. But I think, “That’s not a crutch. That is power to be able to respond that way after that.”

Hank Smith: 08:50 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 08:51 So, I like to say, “That’s not a crutch. It’s more like a sword.” And sometimes we have to lean on it, but faith in Christ is a power and the power to get through things. And it’s like, I got to lean on my sword for a minute. “But I know in whom I have trusted. My God hath been my support,” to quote Nephi, right?

Hank Smith: 09:09 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 09:09 And to see an example just like you gave, and I saw one in my own Sunday school class last Sunday, like that, where, wow, that’s not weakness. That’s power. Trust in God is power to get through life.

Hank Smith: 09:22 It’s a beautiful thing, and it’s inspiring.

John Bytheway: 09:24 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 09:25 The people who are listening to this right now, going through, “I’m going through really hard things. I’m suffering,” the fact that you’re listening to this, that you’re still moving forward, that you’re still grasping at faith, that is inspiring to the people around you. And that’s one of the ways God’s going to consecrate this affliction for your gain is you’re going to become an instrument in his hands.

Hank Smith: 09:45 And often John, it’s just, you can’t understand. The wisdom comes from walking through it. I hate to say that, but there’s some things you just can’t learn through reading about them or hearing someone talk about them. Just going through that terrible, hellish darkness yourself, you come out different. You can come out holy.

Hank Smith: 10:07 I remember our friend Chris Belcher said, “Hard times can become holy.” She talked about her cancer in her brain and the meningitis she had and the pain she went through. And she said, “My hard times have become holy because I turned to Him. I turned to the one who can make my hard times holy. He did it for me. My hard times became holy.”

John Bytheway: 10:29 Now, I’m thinking to section 58. You cannot behold with your natural eyes for the present time the design of your God with those things which shall come here after. And it’s kind of just, “Hold on. God can do great things with even our hard times.”

Hank Smith: 10:43 I have to remind myself that we signed up for this, right?

John Bytheway: 10:46 Elder Maxwell said, because it says the sons of God shouted for joy in the book of Job at the prospect of coming to earth, and he says, “Now that we’re here, we’re wondering, ‘What was all the shouting about?'” See how long we could go on in this topic, Hank.

Hank Smith: 11:00 We hope that maybe something today has been a blessing to those of you who are struggling. Keep going. Keep going.

John Bytheway: 11:07 Whatever you’re going through. Yeah.

Hank Smith: 11:08 Yeah. The Lord knows. He knows you. He knows the end from the beginning, and you will see His hand as you move forward.

Hank Smith: 11:15 We hope that you will join us next week for another Follow Him Favorites. Come over and listen to the full podcast this week. We’re talking about Joseph of Egypt. You’re going to want to hear this. It’s a great story.

John Bytheway: 11:25 Speaking of bad things happening to good people.

Hank Smith: 11:27 Talking about someone who took difficult turns of other people’s choices and just difficult things of life and tried to make the best out of them, and God turned them into holy, consecrated efforts. Come on over and join us. But if not, that’s okay. Join us next week for another Follow Him Favorites.